


Outsiders of Gondolin Mutual Defence League

by Himring



Series: Outsiders of Gondolin [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Gen, Gondolin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13441074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Himring/pseuds/Himring
Summary: In Gondolin, a fat elf attempts to befriend a sad elf.At first, things don't look very promising.But maybe the friendship will turn out deeper and more real for it, in the long run.





	1. Lemon Tarts of Gondolin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts "resolutions" and "mix up" at Tolkien100 (4 x 100 words according to Word).  
> Also posted to Tumblr for the last day of Tolkien Gen Week.

The lemon tart was rapidly becoming a problem. It sat within easy reach in lonely splendour on a huge platter in the middle of the table, long after most of Turgon’s court had risen to dance, twirling elegantly about each other in the middle of the hall.

Salgant had resolved that he would on no account have a second helping of dessert and, up until the last couple of minutes, he had had every hope of keeping that resolution.

Now, after trying to keep a conversation going with Maeglin for about an hour, he felt himself crumbling in every way.

 

He had sought out Maeglin’s company out of sympathy for a fellow outsider. At least, he was sure it had been fellow feeling and compassion that had motivated him, mainly, even if maybe other not quite so noble feelings might have played a part as well.

Who could have helped feeling sorry for Maeglin after all, stranded as he was among virtual strangers, after his own father had tried to kill him and ended up killing his mother instead and then had himself been killed by Maeglin’s uncle? What a horrendous mix-up! And Maeglin was so young for it, too!

 

But he had quickly discovered that sympathy alone did not equip him to deal with the situation he had brought on himself. He had tried to ask Maeglin questions and received monosyllabic answers. He had trotted out his best and most entertaining anecdotes and realized that they were banal. He had tried to make jokes and they had come out flat and unfunny. Clearly, he was in no way as interesting or intelligent a conversationalist as he hoped he was. 

Despite the recent banquet, Salgant was now feeling ravenously hungry. How long could he go on ignoring that lemon tart?

 

‘You worry too much,’ said Maeglin, suddenly. 

Salgant blinked in surprise. It was the first comment that Maeglin had freely offered. Salgant had no idea where it was coming from. Had Maeglin actually been listening to anything he said?

‘So, we’re not like them,’ said Maeglin. ‘Why should we care?’

There was so much wrong with this that Salgant’s jaw dropped and he was stricken dumb—especially because Maeglin clearly did care, badly. 

But Maeglin picked up the tart, delicately taking the tiniest bite.

‘See?’ And he smiled, genuinely smiled at Salgant. ‘Not a problem any more. Now it’s taken.’


	2. Inventing Gondolin

‘You’ve stopped talking to me, Salgant.’

‘You didn’t seem all that entertained...’

‘True, I wasn’t entertained, but I was trying to follow, trying to work out why things were meant to be funny.

I thought I knew Gondolin, Salgant. I’d imagined it all, from my mother’s stories. Uncle Turgon was just like my father, only without the not-so-good bits, and I’d convinced myself there was a place waiting for me here. Here, I’d fit right in! Then we arrived and I realized right away, even before…

I’d invented Gondolin, Salgant, out of whole cloth. The city was nothing like that.’

‘Your mother had left things out?’

It was still strange—wrenching—to think of their lady Ar-Feiniel in Nan Elmoth and worse, knowing the end of it.

‘My mother left things out in her stories, yes—fewer major things than you might think, but so many small ones that it did not even occur to her to mention. And I asked no questions, or the wrong ones, content to believe Gondolin would be Nan Elmoth, only with more room to breathe… ’

‘You’ll get used to us in time.’

‘Maybe. Keep talking, Salgant, as I try to work things out.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the canonical account is probably meant to hint at Maeglin's future plotting when his reaction to Aredhel's stories is described.  
> But I have a hard time believing that Maeglin would think of Turgon's not having a "heir" as one of the Edain might, because even in Beleriand, elven kings are not expected to die or their heirs to succeed to the throne in the natural course of things. Instead, I tend to read Maeglin's reaction as the kind of wish fulfilment or adoption fantasy that children do indulge in, in less happy moments: the idea that there is somewhere out there someone who fully appreciates them. This kind of dream often doesn't survive contact with reality, but in Maeglin's case the outcome is especially traumatic.
> 
> The Tolkien100 prompt here was "in time". The fic is 2 x 100 words in Word (even if AO3 disagrees, apparently).


	3. Under the Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trees of Nan Elmoth and trees of Gondolin.

He trusted the trees at first. Like a true child of twilight he played among their roots; they were both protection and company. It was only later that their dark branches began to lie like prison bars across his mind—like his father’s grasp, controlling, confining, unable to let go.

Maeglin stood peering up into the radiance of Belthil and Glingal, glittering work of his uncle’s hands, fashioned with the Noldorin skill he had come here to learn. It bothered him that they were trees. Out of sight, but inescapable, hovered the shadow of his own trees, black now, unforgiving.  
  


Salgant, who was serious enough about art to forget awkwardness, said, squinting upward: ‘Brilliant, of course. Only, they are memories—neither the real thing nor something entirely in themselves. You feel the lack; sometimes I just want to do something like string a clothes line between them.

It was strange for the Sindar, at first, coming here from Nevrast to live among Noldorin memories, I think. You might like Finrod’s work better, if I could show you Nargothrond.’

Salgant bought Maeglin a tree in a bowl, stunted in its growth, an expensive item: ‘You see? Regardless, its leaves are green.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Child of Twilight" is the meaning of the name Lomion given to Maeglin by Aredhel.   
> Belthil and Glingal are images of the Trees of Valinor that Turgon made.
> 
> 2 x 100 words in Word. The prompt was "under the trees", which I also used as a title.


	4. Small Sizes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salgant and Maeglin in a short exchange about body size.  
> Maeglin has a comment to make about cultural relativity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tolkien 100 prompt was: Upon this Hither Shore.

‘I was slender just once in my life—when, after long starvation, we reached the Hither Shores, crossing the Ice.’  
  
Salgant actually sounded wistful, even though all Gondolin agreed about the horrors of the Crossing. Maeglin looked sceptical.  
  
‘You don’t believe I could ever be slim, under any circumstance?’  
  
‘What I think is: half-starved would not be a good look on you. Your bones are more—dwarvish than other people’s.’  
  
‘Thanks for the compliment!’  
  
‘You think dwarves are ugly? But you’ve never been to Nogrod. A few days completely surrounded by dwarves—Salgant, you’d start feeling impossibly spindly. Even you!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my take on things, Maeglin has no real friends among the Dwarves, because he was never there long enough, or in relaxed enough circumstances, to do so. But he has learned things from them and it is not meant to imply he is anti-Dwarf.
> 
> 1 x 100 words in MS Word


	5. A Three-Course Meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the meantime, Maeglin has become head of his own House, the House of the Mole, and has consequently hired a cook.  
> Maeglin takes measures to prevent another lemon-tart problem.  
> (And Salgant thinks of almost everything in terms of art.)

Maeglin finds his cook stirring a mysterious dark liquid in a huge pot. She hands over to her assistant in order to give her new master her attention.  
  
‘I’m planning to invite Salgant for a private meal.’  
  
‘Salgant?’ the cook responds. ‘That’s a lord who likes his food!’ Quickly, she starts scribbling on a scrap of paper. ‘I’m thinking this, for the menu…’  
  
Maeglin reads and frowns. ‘Pork sausages?’  
  
The cook draws herself up. ‘What’s wrong with my pork sausages?’  
  
She came highly recommended. He had hoped for better than this.  
  
‘Nothing. But this—this is a menu for Rog!’  
  
  
‘For Rog? Not for Salgant?’  
  
Maeglin will eat anything, whatever keeps him going at the forge. Gondolin’s food is as strange to him as anything else in the city. If he can’t make himself clear, he may need to replace the cook. He tries...  
  
‘The starter—that’s all right. You could add something, even, make it a little more filling, take the edge off. But the main course is too heavy. And the dessert, that should be really light.’  
  
Good, she is listening.  
  
He needs Salgant to be comfortable as his guest, not confronted with mountains of food, however delicious.  
  
  
The dessert is a concoction beaten and whipped to a froth so light that almost it could float off the spoon and away through the window.  
  
Maeglin has been watching Salgant closely during the meal, for signs of tension or enjoyment. His first success as a host!  
  
‘My compliments to your cook!’  
  
‘I asked her to prepare something specifically for you. I’m glad that worked.’  
  
Salgant is surprised. Then he nods, smiles.  
  
‘She is an artist.’  
  
‘An artist? The cook?’  
  
‘Like a painter. Many are good, but only in their own style. But true adepts can excel with any palette!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tolkien Weekly prompts: stir, add, beat.  
> 3 x 100 words in MS Word


	6. Merely a Glimpse: After the Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maeglin followed his uncle Turgon into battle to assist Fingon, but that battle was lost and Maeglin's other uncle died there, without Maeglin ever having met him in times of peace.

His uncle’s face turned briefly towards him, in the midst of battle, strong emotions flickering over it. That love, the joy that lit it up were for Turgon, not him, he reminds himself. They didn’t really have a chance to meet. 

‘He would not have cared for me, anyway.’ Because I was the death of his sister.

A crude thing to say about a fallen hero. But Maeglin is Eol’s cold son, cannot be breaking down over the death of an uncle he did not even know!

‘Fingon was more likely to care for people than not,’ says Salgant, somberly.


	7. Clear Notes in Harmony that Ran from Tower to Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maeglin works on the Gate of Steel.

Maeglin had not understood his uncle’s desire to lock Gondolin away from the world. His first experience of battle and defeat changed that. He drew on all he had learned from Eol, from Turgon and Rog, and began designing the Gate of Steel. This gate no enemy would get through.  
  
‘Formidable,’ commented Salgant, shown the plans and the measurements. ‘But it’s the innermost gate. We hope Morgoth will never see it! It’s the guards who will. Can you make it more... appealing for them?’  
  
That is how the gate, when struck, came to sound like a harp of many strings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the description of the Gate in the Unfinished Tales (Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin).  
> Salgant was chief of the House of the Harp; if he inspired Maeglin's work on the Gate of Steel in any way, it would most likely be in this.
> 
> This drabble was written for a Tolkien weekly prompt "measure".
> 
> 100 words in MS Word.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course ultimately this friendship ends in disaster, but maybe it need not have if it hadn't been for Morgoth.
> 
> To be continued.  
> (But I hadn't really intended to start another WIP at this point, so it might take a while.)


End file.
